The Component Model and Going Beyond eFiling

The Court Technology Conference in Salt Lake City last month went far beyond all of our expectations. We were kept busy networking with court staff members, doing live demos and sharing our experiences. Thanks for stopping by our booth and attending our two major presentations.

The Component Model in Action

Jenny Bunch talked about how our methodology of technology design fits right in with the National Center for State Courts promotion of a new interoperability model for court technology vendors. NCSC wants vendors to design products as components so that a court can take advantage of the best offerings of one vendor and integrate them with those of another. We discovered early on that building large, monolithic applications makes it difficult for courts to adopt newer technology as it too often requires removing core systems just to acquire bits of new functionality. With the component model, courts can add new functionality easier. As a vendor, we can accelerate innovations because we are focusing on one component at a time.

We continue to develop future projects which offer high levels of component design. These projects include smaller sets of functionality so courts can adopt individual pieces rather than having to purchase wholesale applications that don’t integrate well with other systems.

Among the examples of courts following this idea are those in Michigan, Tennessee and California which are using new JusticeTech components integrated with an existing system. In fact, in each of these cases, we took the lead in the integration project. See our case study library to read about courts implementing JusticeTech technology to streamline court operations.

Going Beyond eFiling

Does this sound familiar? Your court has an eFiling system but clerks are still printing and routing paper around the court and spending hours or days re-keying information into a case management system that could have and should have so easily and automatically entered the needed information from the eFiled document into the CMS. Brad Smith’s presentation showed how the electronic workflow is the missing piece of the puzzle that routes documents around the court automatically, as well as sharing documents with other agencies. Courts with a decentralized judiciary are attaining a digital workflow all the way to the courtroom without the expense of replacing their existing CMS because integration is built into the technology.

Brad also discussed how any project to automate the court must involve all stakeholders because the system will touch the clerks, judges, local bar, prosecutors, the sheriff and related state agencies.

You know it’s been a terrific conference when the afterhours reception had to be extended to allow show attendees to continue networking and sharing experiences with each other. Or maybe it was the brew?